Introduction to 8085 Instructions

The 8085 Instructions

– Since the 8085 is an 8-bit device it can have up to 28
(256) instructions.
• However, the 8085 only uses 246 combinations that represent a
total of 74 instructions.
– Most of the instructions have more than one format.

– These instructions can be grouped into five different

groups:
• Data Transfer Operations
• Arithmetic Operations
• Logic Operations
• Branch Operations
• Machine Control Operations
 Instruction and Data Formats
• Each instruction has two parts.
– The first part is the task or operation to be
performed.
• This part is called the “opcode” (operation code).

– The second part is the data to be operated on

• Called the “operand”.
 Data Transfer Operations
– These operations simply COPY the data from the
source to the destination.
– MOV, MVI, LDA, and STA

– They transfer:
• Data between registers.
• Data Byte to a register or memory location.
• Data between a memory location and a register.
• Data between an I\O Device and the accumulator.

– The data in the source is not changed.

 The LXI instruction
• The 8085 provides an instruction to place
the 16-bit data into the register pair in one
step.
• LXI Rp, <16-bit address> (Load eXtended Immediate)

– The instruction LXI B 4000H will place the

16-bit number 4000 into the register pair B, C.
• The upper two digits are placed in the 1st register of
the pair and the lower two digits in the 2nd .

LXI B 40 00H B 40 00 C
 The Memory “Register”
• Most of the instructions of the 8085 can use a
memory location in place of a register.
– The memory location will become the “memory” register M.
• MOV M B
– copy the data from register B into a memory location.
– Which memory location?

• The memory location is identified by the contents

of the HL register pair.
– The 16-bit contents of the HL register pair are treated
as a 16-bit address and used to identify the memory
location.
 Using the Other Register Pairs
– There is also an instruction for moving data from
memory to the accumulator without disturbing the
contents of the H and L register.

• LDAX Rp (LoaD Accumulator eXtended)

– Copy the 8-bit contents of the memory location identified by the

Rp register pair into the Accumulator.
– This instruction only uses the BC or DE pair.
– It does not accept the HL pair.
 Indirect Addressing Mode
• Using data in memory directly (without loading
first into a Microprocessor’s register) is called
Indirect Addressing.

• Indirect addressing uses the data in a register pair

as a 16-bit address to identify the memory location
being accessed.
– The HL register pair is always used in conjunction with
the memory register “M”.
– The BC and DE register pairs can be used to load data
into the Accumultor using indirect addressing.
 Arithmetic Operations
– Addition (ADD, ADI):
– Any 8-bit number.
– The contents of a register.
– The contents of a memory location.
• Can be added to the contents of the accumulator and the result
is stored in the accumulator.

– Subtraction (SUB, SUI):

– Any 8-bit number
– The contents of a register
– The contents of a memory location
• Can be subtracted from the contents of the accumulator. The
result is stored in the accumulator.
Arithmetic Operations Related to
Memory
• These instructions perform an arithmetic operation
using the contents of a memory location while
they are still in memory.
– ADD M
• Add the contents of M to the Accumulator
– SUB M
• Sub the contents of M from the Accumulator
– INR M / DCR M
• Increment/decrement the contents of the memory location in
place.

– All of these use the contents of the HL register pair to

identify the memory location being used.
 Arithmetic Operations
– Increment (INR) and Decrement (DCR):
• The 8-bit contents of any memory location or any
register can be directly incremented or decremented
by 1.
• No need to disturb the contents of the accumulator.
 Manipulating Addresses
• Now that we have a 16-bit address in a register
pair, how do we manipulate it?
– It is possible to manipulate a 16-bit address stored in a
register pair as one entity using some special
instructions.
• INX Rp (Increment the 16-bit number in the register pair)
• DCX Rp (Decrement the 16-bit number in the register pair)

– The register pair is incremented or decremented as one

entity. No need to worry about a carry from the lower
8-bits to the upper. It is taken care of automatically.
 Logic Operations
• These instructions perform logic operations on the
contents of the accumulator.
– ANA, ANI, ORA, ORI, XRA and XRI
• Source: Accumulator and
– An 8-bit number
– The contents of a register
– The contents of a memory location
• Destination: Accumulator
ANA R/M AND Accumulator With Reg/Mem
ANI # AND Accumulator With an 8-bit number

ORA R/M OR Accumulator With Reg/Mem

ORI # OR Accumulator With an 8-bit number

XRA R/M XOR Accumulator With Reg/Mem

XRI # XOR Accumulator With an 8-bit number
 Logic Operations
– Complement:
• 1’s complement of the contents of the accumulator.
CMA No operand
 Additional Logic Operations
• Rotate
– Rotate the contents of the accumulator one
position to the left or right.
– RLC Rotate the accumulator left.
Bit 7 goes to bit 0 AND the Carry flag.
– RAL Rotate the accumulator left through the carry.
Bit 7 goes to the carry and carry goes to bit 0.
– RRC Rotate the accumulator right.
Bit 0 goes to bit 7 AND the Carry flag.
– RAR Rotate the accumulator right through the carry.
Bit 0 goes to the carry and carry goes to bit 7.
 RLC vs. RLA
Carry Flag

• RLC
7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

Accumulator

Carry Flag

• RAL 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

Accumulator
 Logical Operations
• Compare
• Compare the contents of a register or memory location with the
contents of the accumulator.
– CMP R/M Compare the contents of the register
or memory location to the contents of
the accumulator.
– CPI # Compare the 8-bit number to the
contents of the accumulator.
• The compare instruction sets the flags (Z, Cy, and S).

• The compare is done using an internal subtraction that does not

change the contents of the accumulator.
A – (R / M / #)
 Branch Operations
• Two types:
– Unconditional branch.
• Go to a new location no matter what.
– Conditional branch.
• Go to a new location if the condition is true.
 Unconditional Branch
– JMP Address
• Jump to the address specified (Go to).

– CALL Address
• Jump to the address specified but treat it as a subroutine.

– RET
• Return from a subroutine.

– The addresses supplied to all branch operations must be

16-bits.
 Conditional Branch
– Go to new location if a specified condition is met.
• JZ Address (Jump on Zero)
– Go to address specified if the Zero flag is set.
• JNZ Address (Jump on NOT Zero)
– Go to address specified if the Zero flag is not set.
• JC Address (Jump on Carry)
– Go to the address specified if the Carry flag is set.
• JNC Address (Jump on No Carry)
– Go to the address specified if the Carry flag is not set.
• JP Address (Jump on Plus)
– Go to the address specified if the Sign flag is not set
• JM Address (Jump on Minus)
– Go to the address specified if the Sign flag is set.
 Machine Control
– HLT
• Stop executing the program.
– NOP
• No operation
• Exactly as it says, do nothing.
• Usually used for delay or to replace instructions
during debugging.
 Operand Types
• There are different ways for specifying the
operand:
– There may not be an operand (implied operand)
• CMA
– The operand may be an 8-bit number (immediate data)
• ADI 4FH
– The operand may be an internal register (register)
• SUB B
– The operand may be a 16-bit address (memory address)
• LDA 4000H
 Instruction Size
• Depending on the operand type, the instruction
may have different sizes. It will occupy a different
number of memory bytes.
– Typically, all instructions occupy one byte only.
– The exception is any instruction that contains
immediate data or a memory address.
• Instructions that include immediate data use two bytes.
– One for the opcode and the other for the 8-bit data.
• Instructions that include a memory address occupy three bytes.
– One for the opcode, and the other two for the 16-bit address.
 Instruction with Immediate Date
• Operation: Load an 8-bit number into the
accumulator.

– MVI A, 32
• Operation: MVI A
• Operand: The number 32
• Binary Code:
0011 1110 3E 1st byte.
0011 0010 32 2nd byte.
 Instruction with a Memory
Address
• Operation: go to address 2085.

– Instruction: JMP 2085

• Opcode: JMP
• Operand: 2085
• Binary code:
1100 0011 C3 1st byte.
1000 0101 85 2nd byte
0010 0000 20 3rd byte
 Addressing Modes
• The microprocessor has different ways of
specifying the data for the instruction. These are
called “addressing modes”.

• The 8085 has four addressing modes:

– Implied CMA
– Immediate MVI B, 45
– Direct LDA 4000
– Indirect LDAX B
• Load the accumulator with the contents of the memory location
whose address is stored in the register pair BC).
 Data Formats
• In an 8-bit microprocessor, data can be
represented in one of four formats:
• ASCII
• BCD
• Signed Integer
• Unsigned Integer.

– It is important to recognize that the microprocessor

deals with 0’s and 1’s.
• It deals with values as strings of bits.
• It is the job of the user to add a meaning to these strings.
 Data Formats
• Assume the accumulator contains the following
value: 0100 0001.
– There are four ways of reading this value:
• It is an unsigned integer expressed in binary, the equivalent
decimal number would be 65.
• It is a number expressed in BCD (Binary Coded Decimal)
format. That would make it, 41.
• It is an ASCII representation of a letter. That would make it the
letter A.
• It is a string of 0’s and 1’s where the 0th and the 6th bits are set
to 1 while all other bits are set to 0.

ASCII stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange.

Counters & Time Delays
 Counters
• A loop counter is set up by loading a register with
a certain value
• Then using the DCR (to decrement) and INR (to
increment) the contents of the register are updated.
• A loop is set up with a conditional jump
instruction that loops back or not depending on
whether the count has reached the termination
count.
 Counters
• The operation of a loop counter can be
described using the following flowchart.

Initialize

Body of loop

Update the count

No Is this
Final
Count?

Yes
Sample ALP for implementing a loop
Using DCR instruction
MVI C, 15H
LOOP DCR C
JNZ LOOP
 Using a Register Pair as a Loop
Counter
• Using a single register, one can repeat a loop for a
maximum count of 255 times.

• It is possible to increase this count by using a

register pair for the loop counter instead of the
single register.
– A minor problem arises in how to test for the final
count since DCX and INX do not modify the flags.
– However, if the loop is looking for when the count
becomes zero, we can use a small trick by ORing the
two registers in the pair and then checking the zero flag.
 Using a Register Pair as a Loop
Counter
• The following is an example of a loop set
up with a register pair as the loop counter.

LXI B, 1000H
LOOP DCX B
MOV A, C
ORA B
JNZ LOOP
 Delays
• It was shown in Chapter 2 that each instruction
passes through different combinations of Fetch,
Memory Read, and Memory Write cycles.
• Knowing the combinations of cycles, one can
calculate how long such an instruction would
require to complete.
• The table in Appendix F of the book contains a
column with the title B/M/T.
– B for Number of Bytes
– M for Number of Machine Cycles
– T for Number of T-State.
 Delays
• Knowing how many T-States an instruction
requires, and keeping in mind that a T-State is one
clock cycle long, we can calculate the time using
the following formula:

Delay = No. of T-States / Frequency

• For example a “MVI” instruction uses 7 T-States.

Therefore, if the Microprocessor is running at 2
MHz, the instruction would require 3.5 Seconds
to complete.
 Delay loops
• We can use a loop to produce a certain
amount of time delay in a program.

• The following is an example of a delay

loop:
MVI C, FFH 7 T-States
LOOP DCR C 4 T-States
JNZ LOOP 10 T-States

• The first instruction initializes the loop counter and is

executed only once requiring only 7 T-States.
• The following two instructions form a loop that
requires 14 T-States to execute and is repeated 255
times until C becomes 0.
 Delay Loops (Contd.)
• We need to keep in mind though that in the last
iteration of the loop, the JNZ instruction will fail and
require only 7 T-States rather than the 10.
• Therefore, we must deduct 3 T-States from the total
delay to get an accurate delay calculation.
• To calculate the delay, we use the following formula:
Tdelay = TO + TL
– Tdelay = total delay
– TO = delay outside the loop
– TL = delay of the loop

• TO is the sum of all delays outside the loop.

 Delay Loops (Contd.)
• Using these formulas, we can calculate the
time delay for the previous example:

• TO = 7 T-States
– Delay of the MVI instruction

• TL = (14 X 255) - 3 = 3567 T-States

– 14 T-States for the 2 instructions repeated 255 times
(FF16 = 25510) reduced by the 3 T-States for the final
JNZ.

( )
 Using a Register Pair as a Loop
Counter
• Using a single register, one can repeat a loop for a
maximum count of 255 times.

• It is possible to increase this count by using a

register pair for the loop counter instead of the
single register.
– A minor problem arises in how to test for the final
count since DCX and INX do not modify the flags.
– However, if the loop is looking for when the count
becomes zero, we can use a small trick by ORing the
two registers in the pair and then checking the zero flag.
 Using a Register Pair as a Loop
Counter
• The following is an example of a delay loop
set up with a register pair as the loop
counter.

LXI B, 1000H 10 T-States

LOOP DCX B 6 T-States
MOV A, C 4 T-States
ORA B 4 T-States
JNZ LOOP 10 T-States
 Using a Register Pair as a Loop
Counter
• Using the same formula from before, we can
calculate:

• TO = 10 T-States
– The delay for the LXI instruction

• TL = (24 X 4096) - 3 = 98301 T- States

– 24 T-States for the 4 instructions in the loop repeated
4096 times (100016 = 409610) reduced by the 3 T-
States for the JNZ in the last iteration.

( )
 Nested Loops Initialize loop 2

Body of loop 2

• Nested loops can be Initialize loop 1

easily setup in Body of loop 1

Assembly language by Update the count1

using two registers for

Is this
the two loop counters No
Final
Count?
and updating the right Yes
register in the right Update the count 2

loop. Is this
No
– In the figure, the body of Final
Count?
loop2 can be before or
Yes
after loop1.
 Nested Loops for Delay
• Instead (or in conjunction with) Register Pairs, a
nested loop structure can be used to increase the
total delay produced.

MVI B, 10H 7 T-States

LOOP2 MVI C, FFH 7 T-States
LOOP1 DCR C 4 T-States
JNZ LOOP1 10 T-States
DCR B 4 T-States
JNZ LOOP2 10 T-States
 Delay Calculation of Nested
Loops
• The calculation remains the same except
that it the formula must be applied
recursively to each loop.
– Start with the inner loop, then plug that delay in
the calculation of the outer loop.

• Delay of inner loop

– TO1 = 7 T-States
• MVI C, FFH instruction
– TL1 = (255 X 14) - 3 = 3567 T-States
• 14 T-States for the DCR C and JNZ instructions repeated 255
times (FF16 = 25510) minus 3 for the final JNZ
 Delay Calculation of Nested
Loops
• Delay of outer loop
– TO2 = 7 T-States
• MVI B, 10H instruction
– TL1 = (16 X (14 + 3574)) - 3 = 57405 T-States
• 14 T-States for the DCR B and JNZ instructions and 3574
T-States for loop1 repeated 16 times (1016 = 1610) minus 3 for the
final JNZ.
– TDelay = 7 + 57405 = 57412 T-States

• Total Delay
– TDelay = 57412 X 0.5 Sec = 28.706 mSec
 Increasing the delay
• The delay can be further increased by using
register pairs for each of the loop counters
in the nested loops setup.
• It can also be increased by adding dummy
instructions (like NOP) in the body of the
loop.